Parental Guidelilnes, Consequences May Be Why Fewer Black Teens Smoke Than Whites

It’s a curious paradox. Black adults are more likely to smoke than white adults and most smokers start as teenagers. But statistics show that fewer black youths than whites begin smoking as adolescents.

A new University of Washington study indicates that lower rates of smoking among black teens may be the result of black parents setting concrete guidelines about substance use and establishing clearly defined consequences for not following those guidelines.

Is lipitor better than lovastatin or the same

Question:

The insurance company wants my husband to change Lipitor for Lovastatin because the latter is cheaper. Don`t know what to do. I don`t want to change because I don`t know much about these drugs. We thank you for any help you can give us.

Answer:

Thank you for contacting NetWellness. Lovastatin and Atorvastatin (Lipitor) are in the class of medications called statins. Statins are drugs used to lower cholesterol. Your body needs some cholesterol to work properly. But if you have too much in your blood, it can stick to the walls of your arteries, narrowing or even blocking them. 

Maggots No Better Than Gel For Wound Healing, Study

A UK study found that maggots (larval therapy) were no quicker at helping leg ulcers to heal or get rid of bacteria than the standard treatment based on hydrogel, and they were on the whole more painful, although they did speed up removal of dead tissue (debridement).

The study was the work of lead researcher Professor Nicky Cullum, deputy head of health sciences at the University of York, and colleagues also from York and other UK research centres, and is published in the 19 March issue of

Heart Failure Rate For Young Blacks 20 Times Higher Than Whites

One in 100 black men and women develops heart failure before age 50, a rate that is 20 times higher than whites in the same age group, according to a study published on Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine, the AP/Boston Globe reports (Stobbe, AP/Boston Globe, 3/19). For the study, researchers from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute over two decades tracked 5,115 black and white men and women who were between ages 18 and 30 at start of the study (Brewington, Baltimore Sun, 3/19). The study was funded in part by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (Rabin, New York Times, 3/19). The completed study found that 27 participants had developed heart failure by age 50, 26 of whom were black. In addition, all five deaths in the study were black people (Baltimore Sun, 3/19).

MR Arthrography Is More Accurate Than MR In Diagnosing Shoulder Tears

MR arthrography of the shoulder allows physicians to better identify tears and provides patients with an accurate diagnosis to determine whether or not surgery is needed, according to a study performed at Neuroskeletal Imaging in Merritt Island, Florida.

The study included 150 patients who underwent both 3T MRI and MR arthrography examinations of the shoulder. “We did the study to see if MR, which is noninvasive, works as well as MR arthrography, an invasive procedure that some patients are fearful of having since contrast has to be injected into the shoulder,” said Thomas Magee, MD, lead author of the study. The study found that MR arthrography was more accurate for making a diagnosis. Sensitivity on conventional MRI for anterior labral tears was 83%; for posterior labral tears was 84%; for SLAP tears was 83%; for supraspinatus tendon tears was 92%; and for partial-thickness articular surface tears was 68%. Sensitivity on MR arthrography on the other hand was significantly higher. Sensitivity for anterior labral tears was 98%; for posterior labral tears was 95%; for SLAP tears was 98%; for supraspinatus tendon tears was 100%; and for partial-thickness articular surface tears was 97%. “With MR arthrography we were able to see things with a high degree of accuracy in the shoulder,” said Dr. Magee.

Patients With Anxiety Disorders Think They Have More Physiological Problems Than They Really Have

A doctoral thesis carried out at the University of Granada has proved that patients with serious anxiety disorders (panic disorder with and without agoraphobia, social anxiety disorder or generalized anxiety disorder) think they suffer more physiological (palpitations, sweating, irregular breathing, shaking of the hands and muscular tension …) than they really have. In other words, although many patients with anxiety disorders have orally reported very intense physiological symptoms in surveys and questionaires, they are hyporeactive when real measures of such symptoms are taken through physiological tests.

Strong Public Policy Measures On Alcohol Price And Availability Would Be More Effective Than Clinical Treatments, Say Experts

Three of Britain’s leading experts in alcohol policy and treatments say that strong public policy measures on price and availability of alcohol would be far more successful than clinical treatments or current Government initiatives in reducing alcohol-related harm. In the same way that doctors use evidence-based medicine to treat individual patients, the Government should use the overwhelming evidence we already have to implement stronger public policy measures on alcohol instead of persisting with measures that have little or no evidence of success.

Is Couple Therapy Better Than Individual Psychotherapy In Alcoholism?

Alcohol abuse serves as a chronic stressor between partners and has a deleterious effect on relationship functioning.

Behavioral Couples Therapy (BCT) for alcohol dependence, studied as an adjunct to individual outpatient counseling, has shown to be effective in decreasing alcohol consumption and enhancing marital functioning, but no study has directly tested the comparative effectiveness of stand-alone BCT versus an individually focused cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) in a clinical community sample.

Survey Shows General Public More Worried About Cancer Today Than 10 Years Ago

New research has revealed we are more concerned about cancer now than we were 10 years ago – even though we know the outlook for anyone diagnosed with cancer today is more positive than ever1.

While respondents to the ‘Changing Face of Cancer Survey’ believe that the chances of living longer with cancer have improved in the past decade, the results reflect that the public is on average 15 per cent more worried about 10 different types of cancer now than 10 years ago1, announced Leukaemia CARE, a national charity that supports people affected by blood cancers. It emerged that blood cancer non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) is the cancer that worries people the least, which is ironic given that it is the nation’s sixth most common cancer2 and has a faster growing incidence rate than bowel, stomach or cervical cancer3. In fact, 63 per cent of those surveyed did not know that NHL is a type of cancer and more than half (53 per cent) could not even hazard a guess as to what NHL is1.

Employment Rates, Economic Factors Could Decrease Access To Employer-Sponsored Health Coverage For Workers Younger Than Age 65, According To EBRI

The percentage of U.S. residents younger than age 65 who had health coverage through their employer remained at 62.2% between 2006 and 2007, but that percentage likely will decline in 2008, according to a Employee Benefit Research Institute report, the Kansas City Star reports. The report states that this year’s rise in unemployment rates and food and gasoline prices suggest a future decline in the number of workers who have or are able to afford employer-sponsored health insurance.